Trip to Avila and Segovia

This weekend I spent more time relaxing in Salamanca. But other than that, we had a group excursion to Avila and Segovia. Segovia is known for its castle and its most popular monument is its old aqueduct. It is a quite an interesting and astonishing architectural site for the time in which it was built. Avila was is an interesting town where we got to walk the long, old city wall. This wall once enclosed the entire city. When leaving the town it is a neat site to see the giant wall wrapping around the old town. I think my favorite out of the two was Segovia, we got a tour that was interesting and the Alcazar, or the castle was a neat site.

Tomorrow I will depart for Morocco! I am very excited to travel again after staying in Salamanca for the past two weeks. I am ready for a new, and different cultural experience. While in Salamanca I have been scrambling to make use of the little time I have left here. I have kept busy going out on weekends, meeting friends, going to the Sunday rastro, eating ice cream in the plaza. I have been trying to meet with Spanish students for English-Spanish intercambio to improve my Spanish. All while still keeping my grades up and going to school. I manage to always stay busy in Salamanca. This week the weather has been beautiful, getting a little too hot even almost 80F. Finally warm weather. Locals say that in Salamanca there are only two seasons, winter and summer. It could be true! Well two weeks until my final day in Salamanca. I hope to make the most of it!

3 semanas mas!

Wow.. only three more weeks. I am realizing how short my time is here. There is so much I want to do, so much I have to do, and I'm trying to do it all. It is exhausting. I've recently started intercambio with a Spanish student who I met. I wish I did it sooner so I could practice my Spanish more. I think my Spanish would be better if I had spent more time talking to and meeting locals. I am also torn between where to travel and how much time I have to travel. I've also been wanting to do salsa classes here but I haven't really had the time. I am always busy. I am looking forward to traveling to Morocco next weekend. It should be one of the highlights of my experience here. Soon my family will be visiting me before I leave in May and before I know it this program is over and I will be returning home. There is already so much to look back on.

bull fighting and Salamanca's rastro

Over the past week we had the opportunity to visit the bull fighting ring in Salamanca where we met a real professional matador. He explained his life long profession, the art of bull fighting, and gave us demonstrations on how the muleta (the cloth used by the matador) is used. He told us that he had killed over 500 bulls in his career! It was very interesting to learn about bull fighting because I think for most of us, it changed our perspective on it. Many people would just say its a its a killers sport that can't be respected, but after learning about bull fighting, I see just how much it takes, and how well they care for the bull before the matches. The matador explained that bull fighting is really seen as a form of art, on how well and elegantly they can control the bull. The fight is judged by the relationship between the matador and the bull, like how well the matador was able to control and predict the bull's movements. Many of us are now interested and open to seeing a real bull right before leaving Spain.

This past weekend my friends and I were able to enjoy a sunny day at Salamanca's rastro, like a major flea market. What a blast, especially for us girls who love shopping for clothes at great bargains. It is a very large market where they sell all types of items. I find the flea market here to be nicer than ones I have been to at home. It is very cheap for clothes. It is also a great place to get cheap food especially the pollo asado or paella.. yumm my favorite! At the end of our day we enjoed a big plate of Paella for only 4 euros! That is about 5 dollars for a giant plate of Paella – Spanish rice with mixed seafood, chicken and peas. I think that we may adopt the rastro as a weekly outing.

Semana Santa y Pascua en Salamanca

When I returned to Salamanca on holy Thursday I noticed hundreds of tourists came to town for holy week. All week it was more crowded than I was used to in Salamanca. Holy week, Semana Santa in Spain, is the week leading up to Easter. In Spain, a widely Catholic country, the celebrations here for holy week are spectacular. Throughout Spain, holy week is celebrated with processions, holy parades where floats are carried down the streets. Holy week processions include a lot of planning as many people take part in it. In Salamanca there are different church groups represented in the holy week processions. I counted 17 religious fraternities, also referred to as “brotherhoods,” represented by flags hanging in the Plaza Mayor of Salamanca. Every evening during holy week, and some mornings, major processions were held where floats of saints are carried by costaleros accompanied by marching bands. These costaleros are well respected for being responsible to bear the floats throughout the processions. It is not an easy task as the processions are very slow and the floats are quite heavy. The floats must be carried with caution and grace as some of these are very old and fragile. For most Americans it is an interesting experience to see Nazareños as they resemble the Ku Klux Klan with the clothes they wear. These Nazareños are meant to depict people from Nazareth. In the church dressing like this is a humbling symbol as everyone is shown wearing the same clothes, symbolic of equality. The dress of the cone shaped hats and draping clothing was actually original of the Nazareños and was later taken by the Ku Klux Klan. It is a shame that this clothing symbolic of religion was was stolen by a racist group for a totally opposite idea. Even after learning the background of this, it was still a culture shock to see hundreds of Nazareños marching the streets bringing images of the KKK to mind. But the vibe and energy during the processions is very different, it is a very serious moment. In our class we learned that some people even cry during the processions. I found myself in the Plaza at 3am where the processions were still occurring, hundreds of people were awake including children and elderly to watch the processions. I found it spectacular that it is such a major celebration, the floats are beautiful, people walk with candles at night, and the smell of incense in the air is strong. On Easter, Pascua in Spain, a celebration was held in the Plaza Mayor. All the religious fraternities marched to the Plaza at noon where the major floats were carried, bands played music, followed by singing, and finished with a public reading. On Pascua the feeling in the crowd was more lively and entertaining. This was one of the most spectacular Easter celebrations I have yet to experience!



Nazareños during semana santa processions





Easter day celebrations in the Plaza Mayor

I survived spring break in Italia!

Bongiorno, buenos dias! I've returned to Salamanca from backpacking through Italy for Spring break. My friend and I traveled between Milan, Venice and Florence for 5 days. It was the most eventful, and most exhausting 5 days I have ever experienced. Our first day was spent camping out at the airport for almost 5 hours waiting for our 6am flight into Milan. Being unfamiliar with budget airlines, we did not realize the airport we flew into was an hour outside the city. Eventually we managed to make it into Milan and find our hostel. It was a long day. We spent the next day in beautiful Venizia (Venice). It was my favorite city on this trip and unlike any other place I have ever seen. We spent the day grabbing yummy pizza and gelato while checking out the major city sites. Every bakery you pass on the street is hard to resist and shops full of beautifully crafted venetian masks lure you in. We were easily distracted with all the shops and scenery of the city. I truly believe it is impossible to not get lost in Venice. The streets are not always clearly marked, and on a map there are many tiny streets which are often confused with the canals running throughout town. Venice seems like a small place, but when you get lost it can take hours to get around. We managed to find a place recommended to us where they fill a plastic 1 liter bottle full of your choice of wine for 1-2 euro! We spent an evening in San Marco square with our new friend drinking our bottled wine.

In Venizia with my travel buddy Jon from Salamanca

Florence was my second favorite of the three cities. Florence has many historical, artistic, and scenic attractions. The city view of Florence is beautiful with the large golden dome of the main cathedral standing out and the river with its bridges surrounding the city. What I enjoyed most about Florence was spending time with the new friends we met. The girl we met in Venice ended up coming to the same hostel in Florence where we made two other friends. We spent our last day in Florence with a half day trip to Pisa to see the leaning tower and the rest of the day at the Uffizi gallery.

Jon and I with new friends we met from Florence.


City view of Florence

During this trip we found that the train Italy was not as easy to use as expected. We tried countless times to buy train tickets online which never worked, waited in line to use confusing ticket machines, and my friend was fined for not having a validated ticket. It is a rather hectic system. One man at our hostel told us that you are supposed to have a validated ticket, but no one pays the fine. He told us that people refuse to pay it all the time. I guess anything goes for the rules of Italy's train system? It was not as reliable as the system is at home but we managed. We also found that some of Italy's museums such as Uffizi are not student-friendly if you are from outside the European Union. Student discounts are only offered to those with E.U. student ID's. By the time we reached Florence we realized that in general Italy seemed more expensive, especially to dine out. The cheaper we ate the better the food was. I think for many Americans when they see a meal for 15 euro they are expecting a pretty good meal. I think the least favorite meal we had in Italy was the most expensive.

Security in the Italian airport was quite a mess. If you think that American airport security is hectic, wait till you see the airports in Europe. It wasn't that security was better, but that security was hectic from being so unorganized. It took almost an hour to go through the crowd referred to as the security line. A lot of people were even cutting to get past security. If they were to try that in America people would have a fit.

12 hours later from the time we departed Milan (between buses, planes, metro and another bus), I arrived back in Salamanca. It was relieving to feel like I was home. After this experience Salamanca really feels like a home away from home. I never thought that 5 days in Italy could feel so long. We were so productive because from the time we landed in Milan to the time we left, we were always busy sight seeing, traveling and meeting people. Compared to the friends we met from our hostels, our stay was very short. After this spring break I do not think I could backpack as long as our friends did. I realize just how exhausting it is and how much planning is necessary. All the friends we made traveled on their own. I don't think I would enjoy doing this trip alone because it is a bit stressful. Aside from my friend getting fined for the train, I would say we had fortunate luck during our trip. Every moment was something to remember. It was definitely an experience I won't forget and I have learned a lot about traveling.